


The House Is Burning (Better Run For Cover)

by corinnemaree



Series: No One Has To Die [5]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-14
Updated: 2017-01-14
Packaged: 2018-09-17 13:09:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9325736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corinnemaree/pseuds/corinnemaree
Summary: A soulmates touch is all there is needed for their mark to show up. Jyn has never wanted her soulmate, but she'll find one in the middle of a war.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I have no shame and I hurt. Have this. kill me later.

Jyn’s Mama and Papa were soulmates. Her mother’s mark was on her wrist, the red burns of a hand gracing around the slender part of her wrist. That’s what they all looked like - burns. Her papa had his mark on the nape of his neck, sliding down to his collarbone. Jyn asked her parents how it felt the first time and they said there were no words to explain that kind of pain and pleasure. They were in love and whenever they would touch, they would sigh - as though the relief of touch was a cure for the burning brands on their skin. 

The marks were the first touch, a hard and untreated brand - though they were never painful. This touch is the brand burning into the skin, the slow sear that would start at the palm and finish in five blazes at each fingertip. Jyn was told that the only time the brand would hurt was when their soulmate was in pain or the first ever touch. No one knew if there were earlier pains, but her mother always suggested there were.

When Jyn saw her mother die by the hands on Krennic, she her father physically fall to his knees, torn into two and empty without her. Just one fall and it told Jyn everything she needed to know. In that moment, Jyn knew she never wanted to meet her soulmate - if she was stuck in a war for her life, she didn’t deserve to meet them. 

Sixteen years past without a thought on anything to do with her soulmate, years of pushing and fighting - where was there time to dwell on it. She was a rebel with Saw, but when Saw abandoned her, Jyn just ran - the easiest way to stay away and ahead of the empire, not to mention her soulmate. 

As Jyn woke up in her cell, there was a strong burning within her. She was scared of that burning. There were times when the burning was stronger than before. She felt soft pain when she hadn't touched anything, the first indications of a meeting with their soulmate. So Jyn kept running. Running was all she was ever taught.

Until it all came to an end - the running stopped but the feeling of running was still hardwired in her. In her cell, she felt the burning, the first solid sign of a soulmate near. She didn’t want it, she didn’t need this, so when she was told she was being sent out for manual labor, Jyn knew whatever happened, she had to escape. 

The carrier came to a jolting stop and Jyn’s foot bounced - a moment. She kept herself in her seat before they came storming into the carrier, looking around and beating the stormtroopers. One came in front of her, his brow furrowed before

“Do you wanna get out of here?” he asked. She nodded. Her chains came loose and so was her ability to run. Fighting her way out, she felt the home stretch in her grasp, ready to find something to get her off the planet and out of there, she was ready to keep running. Before she even realised it, she was pummeled down to earth, a droid stood over her, Jyn’s chest feeling tight and unforgiving. Her vision faded and she was carried somewhere else.

With consciousness fading in and out, Jyn was listening into fragmented conversations, little snippets of where she was heading and who she was with inside the ship. There was one conversation that made the burning ache so dead in her belly that she groaned in pain. 

“Did you have to hit her so hard?” a man with accented english asked.

“Why does it matter?” the imperial droid replied.

“I felt like you hit me too. I saw her go down and my chest has felt tight ever since,” he continued, the sound of shift material came over the interior of the ship - as though the man was rubbing his chest.

“That’s very strange, Cassian. We’ll have to examine you when we get back to the base,” the droid remarked. The man clicked his tongue, groaning slightly.

“I’ll be fine. Just be more careful with the people we rescue next time,” the man grunted. Jyn groaned sharply before everything became so painful that her chest was aching every time her heart beat. “Is she okay back there?” the man asked. Someone beside her gave a reply that Jyn didn’t catch; she was unconscious before she could make out the answer. 

Whenever Jyn tried to keep herself from feeling the burning, she was drawn to Cassian. There was no way around it, he was a magnet. Jyn kept herself isolated when it came to him, taking precautions to stay armed and away from him at every possible moment she could. Jyn was having a horrible feeling that Cassian was her soulmate. That was an awful and unspeakable feeling. Though Cassian was an attractive and beautiful man, the idea that her soulmate stood in front in of her in the middle of war. Yeah, the idea wasn’t exactly comforting. 

When they found their way to Jedha, Cassian and Jyn were bound to each other’s sides, an uncomfortable feeling and unwanted. When he left her side, however, Jyn felt at a loss, directionless. As a small altercation ensued, Cassian tore Jyn away and Jyn jumped out his hold. He wrenched her back away from the man and Jyn looked down at Cassian’s hand. Gloved and wrapped around her jacket. But her suspicions about him being her soulmate had to be false - there was no mark and he seemed unphased. Jyn tried to keep her distance.

They kept going until the explosion went off. Wrenching her gloves off to find her weapon, Cassian was doing the same, searching with better hands. They fired their weapons and made their way through the city of Jedha, trying to escape as best they could. Until an explosion erupted. Jyn pulled Cassian down to the ground to get him undercover. 

Cassian yelled out in pain and Jyn saw a searing red mark go across the base of his neck and her fingertips on the edges of his jaw. It was her hand, slender against the crook of his neck but he didn’t look at her in shock or even tried to see what the pain was - he just fought through it and pushed on. 

“Jyn!” Cassian called out, wrenched her up from the ground and tugging on her wrist. 

Jyn hissed in a breath as Cassian sighed. Jyn stared up at him before wrenching her arm away from him. No. This can’t be fucking happening. Jyn pushed herself back against the stone wall, keeping her distance from Cassian. His brow furrowed before they were being fired upon. They couldn’t talk now, and Jyn didn’t want to. She was willing to run there and then. But she couldn’t. She still had to fight. 

With the commotion of everything, things rushed past without warning or time to come to terms with everything, their time there came to an end. Chirrut, Baze, Jyn and Cassian were taken and Jyn felt herself become weak at her knees. The new brand that laced her arm was striking and painful, nothing like what her mother had told her. The distance that was separating Jyn and Cassian felt like an infection that radiated over Jyn’s chest, a sickness that she knew she couldn’t remedy without him. She hated that feeling entirely. 

 

*****

 

This was deviating far from Cassian’s intended plan. Trying to pick the lock, Cassian kept rubbing at his neck, a pain that was unlike anything he’d ever felt before. He sighed before slouching against the wall, just waiting for the right time to pick the lock - knowing he could at this point. Looking up at Chirrut, there was the old faded burn on his wrist, much larger hand than his own. As Cassian looked over to Baze, it was hard to miss the handprint that was over his right cheeks and fingertips ending just above his eyebrow. 

“Why are you doing that?” Baze asked, almost as though he was irritated by Cassian’s constant fidgeting.

“It hurts,” Cassian muttered, scratching again at his neck. 

“He doesn’t know, Baze,” Chirrut chuckled and Baze scoffed as he looked down at Cassian.

“How could he, he can’t see himself,” Baze nudged Chirrut’s arm playfully. 

“What are you talking about?” Cassian asked.

“You’ve got your mark,” Chirrut smiled and Cassian laid his hand over his neck.

“What?” 

“A woman’s hand right there,” Baze confirmed, pointing to the part in which the pain was irritating and tugging at his nerves. 

“But that means…” Cassian muttered to himself before everything started going to hell. “Where’s Jyn?” he asked when seeking her out. But the pull inside of him told him where to go. He found her hunched over on the ground and he tugged her to her feet, rushing them out and back towards the ship. 

Throughout the journey, there was a guilt that stuck to the pit of his stomach, a hard tar that was inescapable and made him frustrated. No matter what had happened to him, he had orders he had to obey - that was why he was in the rebellion, to stop the empire at any cost. He had to. But the moment he was in position, he was torn. 

So much was running through his mind - mainly with the knowledge that his soulmate, a woman he was supposed to love, was going to lose her father through his actions. Wiping away the rain from his eyes, he stopped himself. He couldn’t bring himself to do it; he had done so much for the rebellion - killed when necessary, but to do this, break everything he stood for just to kill a man without warning or reason, it would kill him. And it would kill Jyn. 

Cassian and Jyn would argue, challenge and have to trust each other. it was a strange sensation, a magnet that pulled them together and trust when they had lost faith in one another. It could not be explained how it all felt, with unsure feelings then snapping to complete trust in the other. Though, Cassian knew that other soulmates could relate to such a matter, it was still strange to experience it all first hand - especially when trust was a foreign and complex feeling for him. 

Yet, their lives were on the line, no matter gravity’s wish for them to be closer. They did not let their skin touch again and if they were to get out of all this alive, Cassian doubted Jyn would let them touch again. 

 

*****

 

For Jyn and Cassian to get this far, it was shocking they had survived. Climbing up after retrieving the plans for the Death Star, they were greeted by Krennic. The blaster shots began to fire back and forth, and before they knew it, cassian was thrown down. He hit beams and crashed onto a landing not far below. Jyn bellowed out in pain, clutching at her side before she knew she had to keep going. Scaling up faster, she got to the top, a pain so hard and paralysing, the tears slipped down her face easily. 

When she saw Krennic again, there was only the feeling of failure, that she couldn’t do this - and that she lost someone she hadn’t yet had as her own. So, when Krennic was shot and Cassian stumbled up with a steady gun, Jyn never thought she’d seen anyone as beautiful. The pain that she was experiencing was now centred on her side, but it was a pain she could push through. Hooking Cassian’s arm over her shoulder and helping him walk so they could get to Rogue One. 

Staying in the elevator for what felt like a lifetime - a moment of just them. Without fully realising it, Jyn rose on her toes, touching her fingers against his cheek. Letting out a soft sigh, Cassian’s hand fell on her waist, holding her closer. “Home,” he muttered, leaning their foreheads against each other. The doors opened and they fell apart, seeing K2 still operating. He could still walk and managed to bear most of Cassian’s weight as they ran towards Rogue One.

Jyn and the crew of Rogue One somehow lived. Somehow and miraculously, they were all alive, flying from Scarif with their lives intact. Inside the craft, Baze cradled Chirrut, the small man reaching up and placing his hand perfectly where Baze’s mark was. Perfect fit. That’s all there was, a perfect fit for the rest of their lives. Jyn looked down at her wrist before looking to find Cassian, his fingers tracing the brand on his neck. Once Rogue One landed, Jyn found herself finding her room and not leaving until she knew there was no chance of seeing another living soul.

With days passing, Jyn kept to herself, avoiding Cassian. Though, it wasn’t hard to do, as he had a few missions to complete as well as fixing K-2SO. Jyn found a warm place with Bodhi, Baze and Chirrut, a family she was building from the ground up. Baze called her ‘little sister’ and Chirrut called her Stardust, per request. Then, Cassian returned and the crew knew there was trouble. No matter how many times Cassian was brought up, Jyn left and the crew caught on that he was a sore subject. As Jyn thought on it, she hid away in the cargo bay of Rogue One, supposing it might take Cassian some time before he found her. It didn’t. He stood at the entrance, just looking at her. They didn’t speak for some time, not until Cassian huffed out of frustration. 

“You knew the whole time,” Cassian said, his arms folded. 

“So did you,” Jyn clicked her tongue, gracing her fingers over the red mark on her skin, learning everything she could about the different way it moved. Where Cassian’s hand had overlapped over her skin slightly, there was a darker red, but it wasn’t any less painful. 

“You can’t avoid this Jyn,” he huffed and Jyn stood, sighing. “Not anymore!” he shouted as Jyn tried to move past him, but interrupted her walk. 

“What do you want from me? I can’t help that we’re like this!” she shouted back, her chest feeling tight that she had to bite her lip. Cassian did the same. 

“We are soulmates, Jyn! We can’t get around that! We both have the stupid brands,” he said, gesturing to the brand on his neck. 

“I’m not doing this right now, we almost died!” she exclaimed, pushing past him before he caught her wrist, the exact spot he touched the first time. Cassian pulled her in close, a reaction that both bodies wanted and craved. Jyn held tightly into Cassian’s shirt, binding her hands in as their foreheads touched and their breaths matched in harsh blows. What a relief his touch was, a satisfying and sensual thing it was to experience. She stayed in his hold, both edges from something more, something they both wanted, before Jyn realised what she was doing. Jyn whimpered, trying to step away.   

“Please don’t touch me,” Jyn said softly. Cassian let her wrist go and they both let out a shaky breaths. They parted, an agonised breath leaving Jyn before she left, not turning back towards Cassian. She held her wrist up towards her chest, begging for herself not to crumble to pieces before she reached her quarters. When she managed to find them, she closed the door and locked them behind her. It took no time for Jyn to find the tightest corner, sitting inside it and cradling herself there. She felt like she had betrayed her parents, betrayed what she promised her mother the moment she died. But there was no fighting this. And Jyn hated not fighting. So she cried. 


End file.
